Acrf Tier 1 RGF - Application From

Name of PI:______RGF (Application) – Tier 1

Aug 09

ACADEMIC RESEARCH FUND (AcRF)
TIER 1

Introduction

The Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 Grant is overseen by Division of Research Administration (DRA), ODPRT, NUS. It funds research projects in the University and comprises 2 levels of funding:

Tier 1: please refer to RGF-Supplementary for Funding Criteria

Level / Total Project Value / Approving Authority / Secretariat
1
FRC / TPV < $180,000 / $150,000* / Faculty Research Committee - FRC
(Chairman – Faculty Dean) / Vice-Dean (Research) Office (VDR), Dean’s Office
2
URC / $180,000 ≤ TPV <$500,000/ $250,000** / University Research Committee - URC
(Chairman – Deputy President, Research & Technology) / NUS DRA

* Applicable to the Accountancy, Business, Humanities & Social Sciences (ABHSS) Cluster. Please note that with effect from URC 1/2010, AcRF Tier 1 – URC for the ABHSS Cluster is no longer applicable. Proposals with TPV of ≥ $150K will be eligible for AcRF Tier 2 – ARC.

** Only applicable for Pure Mathematics and Statistics of the Informatics and Mathematics (IM) Cluster.

Tier 2: please refer to Application Form RGF (Tier 2) for more information & RGF-Supplementary for Funding Criteria

Total Project Value / Approving Authority / Secretariat
Humanities Cluster
$150,000# ≤ TPV (excluding RS) <$1,000,000 / Academic Research Council, MOE
/ MOE
Sciences Cluster
$500,000 / $250,000 ≤ TPV (excluding RS) <$1,000,000

# Proposals submitted to ABHSS with TPV ≥ $150,000 are eligible for AcRF Tier 2 – ARC.

Eligibility for Tier 1 Funding

Principal investigators (PIs) and Co-Investigators (Co-PIs) must be full-time tenure-track academic staff (faculty members) of NUS.

NUS Research Institutes/Centres (RIC) applicants must hold joint academic appointment with a Faculty, and may apply through their host Department/Faculty. RIC applicants must forward a copy of the proposal application to the Director/RIC for information and records.

Review Process

Applicants should first submit full proposals, prepared in accordance to guidelines specified in RGF Supplementary, through the Head of Department to the FRC of their respective Faculties. The FRC will evaluate the FRC proposals and make funding decisions.

Tier 1 (URC) will be submitted by the Faculty Vice-Dean (Research) Office to DRA by the specified deadline. The proposals will be subjected to evaluation by an Expert Panel and decision by the URC.

Funding

Grants will normally be awarded for a funding period of 3 years, contingent upon satisfactory progress as assessed during annual reviews.

1a. TITLE OF PROJECT

The title should be no more than 80 characters (including space). The title should be descriptive and specific rather than general.

1b. KEYWORDS

Please provide a maximum of 6 keywords (no more than 80 characters each).
2. Host University: / National University of singapore
3. PROJECT DURATION
Start Date (mm/yyyy):
End Date (mm/yyyy):
Duration of Project (mths):
4a. PRINCIPAL Investigator (Please note that only one PI per application is allowed.)
Salutation:
Name:
Designation:
Department/ Faculty:
Institution:
Address:
Fax:
E-mail:
Telephone No.:
4b. CO-Investigator(S) (Please add if there are more co-investigators. Please note that co-investigators have to be fully-based in Singapore. Fractional appointments in Singapore are not allowed.)
Salutation:
Name:
Designation:
Department/ Faculty:
Institution:
Address:
Fax:
E-mail:
Telephone No.:
4c. COLLABORATOR(S) (Please add if there are more collaborators. Please note that collaborators have to be fully-based in Singapore. Fractional appointments in Singapore are not allowed.)
Salutation:
Name:
Designation:
Department/ Faculty:
Institution:
Address:
Fax:
E-mail:
Telephone No.:

CURRICULUM VITAE

Please provide the following information in no more than 2 pages per applicant (including Co-Investigators and Collaborators):

· Name

· Current position and past employment history (Please provide full details, e.g. joint appointments)

· Academic qualifications (Please indicate institution’s name and year degree awarded)

· Up to 10 publications most relevant to this grant application

· Recent awards

· Postgraduate students trained to date.(Please provide titles of theses and indicate whether Masters or Ph.D. level)

· Number of post-doctorates and PhD students currently in the lab and their source of funding (e.g. MOE AcRF Tier 1/ 2, BMRC, NMRC, SERC, DSTA, etc).

5. CLASSIFICATION
Indicate the discipline cluster most suitable for evaluation of your proposal with an ‘X’. Please refer to Annex A of RGF (Supplementary) for description of the discipline clusters.
1) Engineering, Physical and Chemical Sciences
2) Informatics and Mathematics
3) Biomedical Engineering and Life Sciences
4) Accountancy, Business, Humanities and Social Sciences
(Please put a ‘X’ in the appropriate box.)
The research proposal is a / New Application
Resubmission (not applicable to rejected proposals)
(Official No.: ______)
Renewal (Official No.: ______)

Have you submitted a similar proposal to AcRF Tier 1 previously?

/ /

Yes

/ /

No

If yes, please indicate month & year of submission : ______

Please also elaborate on how this submission differs from the previous submission to AcRF Tier 1.

FOR RESUBMISSION PROPOSALS

This section is applicable only to proposals which have been invited for resubmission to AcRF Tier 1 funding by the URC Expert Panel. In no more than 500 words, please provide a point-by-point rebuttal to each of the comments and concerns raised by the EPs in previous grant evaluation.

6. ABSTRACT OF THE PROPOSAL

Please provide a succinct and accurate description of the proposal in no more than 1000 words. The abstract must capture: the academic significance of the research, the hypotheses or research questions to be addressed, the approach and feasibility of the study.

7a. DETAILS OF RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Give a description of the research in no more than 10 pages (Arial font size 10, single line spacing). Information SHOULD include specific aim(s) of the project, significance, approach, innovation, investigator, environment and preliminary studies/progress reports related to the research proposal, as detailed in Annex B of RGF (Supplementary). References cited should be provided at the end of the document. Information provided should be sufficiently self-contained for an assessment of the proposal without further reference to other materials.

7b. Declaration of Ethics Consideration

* Please ignore this section if you have completed the “Checklist and Declaration of the Ethics & Research Compliances” table in the Grant Endorsement Form.*

Please ensure that the relevant ethics approval has been obtained prior to submission of proposal.

Please tick, where appropriate, if your study involves the following:

Human subject
Use of Human Tissues or Cells
Animal Experimentation
Use of Animal Tissues or Cells
Requirement for containment (BSL 2 and above)
Other ethical approval (please specify)
Lab-Based Research or
Non-Lab Based Research
Research to be conducted in Malaysia
Research to be conducted in Thailand
Research to be conducted in Other Country(ies)

A copy of the ethics approval is attached:

Yes No

8. PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE (GANTT CHART FORMAT)

The proposed schedule will be used for assessment and evaluation of the project. A satisfactory progress is required for continued disbursements of funds and will also be taken into consideration for future AcRF Tier 1 applications and for grant renewal.

Quarters

A. Project

Implementation Schedule

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q1

Q2

9. PROJECT DELIVERABLES

a. Manpower training
No. of M.Sc. students to be trained
No. of Ph.D students to be trained
No. of Undergraduate/ Honours students to be trained
b. Targets for research outcomes
No. of Publications (please categorize: original research articles, reviews, letters and correspondence, others)
No. of Conferences
No. of Patents (if applicable)
No. of Software tools (if applicable)

10. Declaration of Other Funding Support

a) The Principal investigator and Co-Investigator(s) should detail the grants[1] awarded in the last 5 years, including those currently held or submitted for consideration by other funding agencies. Please note that parallel submissions are not allowed – i.e. applicants should not send similar versions or part(s) of the current AcRF proposal application to other agencies for funding.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Grant/s Applied
(Pending Approval)
Please add records, if any / S/N / Status:
PI, Co-PI, Collaborator
(please indicate one) / Project Title / Funding Agency/ies
Please list co-funding Grantors, if applicable / Amount Requested
(S$) / Proposed Duration of Award
(No. of Years)
AcRF / Non-AcRF
TOTAL
Grant/s Awarded
(Current)
Please add records, if any / S/N / Status:
PI, Co-PI, Collaborator
(please indicate one) / Project Title
(Project ID / Account No.) / Funding Agency/ies
Please list co-funding Grantors, if applicable / Amount Awarded
(S$) / Duration of Award
(MM-YY to MM-YY) / % of time PI is involved in each grant
AcRF / Non-AcRF
TOTAL
Grant/s Awarded
(Completed) –
Last 3 grants completed
Please add records, if any / S/N / Status:
PI, Co-PI, Collaborator
(please indicate one) / Project Title
(Project ID / Account No.) / Funding Agency/ies
Please list co-funding Grantors, if applicable / Amount Awarded
(S$) / Duration of Award
(MM-YY to MM-YY)
AcRF / Non-AcRF
TOTAL

CO- PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR – (state Name here)

Grant/s Applied
(Pending Approval)
Please add records, if any / S/N / Status:
PI, Co-PI, Collaborator
(please indicate one) / Project Title / Funding Agency/ies
Please list co-funding Grantors, if applicable / Amount Requested
(S$) / Proposed Duration of Award
(No. of Years)
AcRF / Non-AcRF
TOTAL
Grant/s Awarded
(Current)
Please add records, if any / S/N / Status:
PI, Co-PI, Collaborator
(please indicate one) / Project Title
(Project ID / Account No.) / Funding Agency/ies
Please list co-funding Grantors, if applicable / Amount Awarded
(S$) / Duration of Award
(MM-YY to MM-YY) / % of time Co-PI is involved in each grant
AcRF / Non-AcRF
TOTAL
Grant/s Awarded
(Completed) –
Last 3 grants completed
Please add records, if any / S/N / Status:
PI, Co-PI, Collaborator
(please indicate one) / Project Title
(Project ID / Account No.) / Funding Agency/ies
Please list co-funding Grantors, if applicable / Amount Awarded
(S$) / Duration of Award
(MM-YY to MM-YY)
AcRF / Non-AcRF
TOTAL

b) Please provide details of ALL other resources available to the team which are not derived from funds provided for specific projects, such as departmental technicians, equipment, and consumables, grants from private foundations, start-up funds, donations from charitable organisations and collaborations with industry. Correspondences showing commitments by other parties in support of your work may be appended.

Types of resources / Funding Organisations / Duration of support / Expiry date, if any

11a. RESEARCH OUTCOMES FROM PREVIOUS SIGNIFICANT GRANT AWARDS[2] (FOR PI)

Please provide a short narrative (no more than 500 words) of the research achievements of each research project (over the past 3 years) of the Principal Investigator that had total project value of ≥$500,000 each. The narrative should articulate how the project has created new knowledge of academic significance and how it has impacted or benefited the larger academic community. For Pure Mathematics and Statistics projects, applicants must provide a narrative (no more than 500 words) of the research achievements of the research projects of the PI and co-PIs over the past 3 years that had a total project value of ≥ $250,000. For Accountancy, Business, Humanities and Social Sciences projects, applicants must provide a narrative (no more than 500 words) of the research achievements of the research projects of the PI and co-PIs over the past 3 years that had a total project value of ≥ $150,000.

11b. RESEARCH OUTCOMES FROM PREVIOUS SIGNIFICANT GRANT AWARDS[3] (FOR CO-INVESTIGATORS)

12. Proposed Budget & justification

You are advised to consult DRA when preparing the budget to ensure that it is in accordance to your university’s HR and finance guidelines. Sufficient details and justifications should be provided for each request and items in the budget must be directly relevant to the proposed project Please note that the duration of funding is capped at three years, beyond which PIs must renew the grant application.

Overall Proposed Budget

Category /

Year 1($)

Year 2($)

Year 3($)

/ Total ($)
EOM (excluding Research Scholarships)
Equipment
OOE
Grand Total ($)

EOM

Staff Category /

No.

Cost per head($)

Year 1($)

Year 2($)

Year 3($)

Total ($)

Research Fellow

/ / / / / /

Visiting Professor

/ /

(Pls also indicate no. of months)

/ / / /

Research Assistant

/ / / / / /

Laboratory Technicians

/ / / / / /

Technical/ Junior Research Assistant

/ / / / / /

Student Assistant

/ / / / / /

Others (please state)

/ / / / / /

Sub-total

/ / / /

Equipment

Please include GST, where applicable.

Item

No.

Cost per item($)

Year 1($)

Year 2($)

Year 3($)

Total ($)

New Lab Equipment (to append vendor’s written quotations)

Item (Quotation No.)

/ / / / / /

Others (please state)

/ / / / / /

Subtotal

/ / / /

OOE

Please include GST, where applicable.

Item*

(Indicate Quotation No., if applicable) /

Year 1($)

Year 2($)

Year 3($)

Total ($)

Materials & Consumables:

/ / / /

Overseas Travel:

(This includes overseas conference travels and overseas travel for purposes directly related to the research project)